Reaction: Brown on Shrewsbury defeat

Phil Brown was disappointed to see his Blues side end the year with a defeat as promotion-chasing Shrewsbury Town came away from Roots Hall with all three points after a 2-1 win.

Despite Ryan Leonard’s header in the second half, an own goal and a Ben Godfrey wonder strike was enough for the visitors and after the match the Southend boss gave us his thoughts.

On the Shrewsbury defeat…

I thought, if anything, they played the conditions better than what we did which is unusual when you’re at Roots Hall. They’ve certainly done their homework.

I’ve just had a conversation with Paul [Hurst – Shrewsbury Town boss] and he talked about how Charlton didn’t play the conditions. He wasn’t going to tell me his full tactics, but they did win a lot of second balls and that’s normally our strength.

The first goal was a mistake or a slip by us. People are already levelling criticism at the pitch but as far as we’re concerned the pitch has been what it has been all season, so I’m not going to start saying that’s the reason why we got beat.

And then they scored a worldie from a set-piece where we just got the organisation wrong between Ryan Leonard and Josh Wright and consequently they had a man spare on the edge of the box and he’s stuck it in the top corner.

On trying to keep up with the top six…

We’re still hopeful and very conscious of the fact that the 6th placed team is a certain amount of points away and they’ve been beaten today, so it could have been better.

If we had got a 2-2 draw, having been 2-0 down at half-time, we could have taken something from the game in terms of confidence, in terms of belief, in terms of getting that second half of the season performance off and running.

We thought we’d done it against Charlton but it’s one step forward, two steps back at the moment.

On his luck with injuries…

We’ve got a game in a couple of day’s time and I don’t know who’s going to be playing in that game at this moment in time. We’re having a little bit of ill luck.

I’ve lost my captain after 15 minutes and three minutes later we’re 1-0 down and then I’m just about to make the Josh Wright substitution and he limps out of it with a hamstring.

So we’re just up against it at the moment, but that’s why we need all hands to the pump.

On any potential transfer dealings…

I think all teams are trying to shuffle the pack because you know what you are and at the moment we’re a middle of the table team, and if we’re going to improve to get to a top six team then we have to do some business.

There’s a renewed bid on the table [for Ryan Leonard], it has been turned down, but the conversations are open and they probably will be open for as long as this month is concerned.

I’ll do everything that I possibly can to keep Lenny at the football club. He’s a massive asset to us as he’s proved again today. He got the goal that got us back into the game, but he’s ambitious and the powers that be, if the finances are right, there’s every possibility [of him leaving].

At this moment in time, Lenny’s a Southend United player and I want to try and keep him that for the next six months at least.